Recovery diver dead, two others injured searching for body - North Carolina

[KevinNM]

I suspect it's like SWAT teams. There are standards and there are those to rigorously follow them. Then there is Lubbock, Pima County, Los Angeles County, ....

 

[Ayisha]

Jenkins explained the third diver’s mask began taking on water and he was unable to clear it. The pressure on his mask increased the further he dove, Jenkins said. That prompted the third diver to ascend quickly.

It sounds like he had a mask squeeze. I've seen some new divers that had a mask squeeze and didn't deal with it (exhale through the nose into the mask) and the mask got tighter and tighter as they descended, and then imploded, filling with water. They have burst blood vessels in the whites of their eyes after the dive.

...Long and the second diver began an ascent, stopping at around 20 to 30 feet below the surface for a “rest stop” to avoid decompression sickness, commonly called the bends. At that point, Poteat said, Long gave an indication that he was out of air... Long descended to the bottom, back to a depth of about 82 feet, Poteat said.

Sometimes newer divers dump their BCD before they ascend and start kicking to initiate an ascent instead of just inhaling deeply and releasing only enough air periodically to remain neutral during the whole ascent. It sounds like he may have dumped all of his air and was maintaining his shallower depth by finning and working hard, and when he stopped kicking, he sunk. It also appears that for him to sink with an empty tank, he was quite overweighted.

I have no idea how much training or recent experience the victim(s) had, but the types of issues as reported above appear to indicate less experience and/or training.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Bob, in this case North Carolina has a state OSH agency that will investigate. I would suspect we will see a Niosh report in that it was a PSD-FF on duty death. But you are right it will take a while. NC OSH covers public sector employees which puts them ahead of the FED. which does not. I know they have been working on PSD regulations but it has stalled this may cause them to push thru the regulations. But at least a real investigation report will be generated we can learn from.

It sounds like he had a mask squeeze. I've seen some new divers that had a mask squeeze and didn't deal with it (exhale through the nose into the mask) and the mask got tighter and tighter as they descended, and then imploded, filling with water. They have burst blood vessels in the whites of their eyes after the dive.



Sometimes newer divers dump their BCD before they ascend and start kicking to initiate an ascent instead of just inhaling deeply and releasing only enough air periodically to remain neutral during the whole ascent. It sounds like he may have dumped all of his air and was maintaining his shallower depth by finning and working hard, and when he stopped kicking, he sunk. It also appears that for him to sink with an empty tank, he was quite overweighted.

I have no idea how much training or recent experience the victim(s) had, but the types of issues as reported above appear to indicate less experience and/or training.

+1
but why were such unskilled divers the search and rescue team?

 

[KevinNM]

+1
but why were such unskilled divers the search and rescue team?

There are several different ways you can get your public safety divers. One is to recruit people who already work for the agency and train them as divers. It's like how you get guys on the bomb squad, unless you happen to have an actual ex-military EOD guy on your department you have to recruit them from your agency and then train them from scratch.

So at some point they will be not terribly skilled divers, because that is how we all start. And training is expensive and a lot of executives don't want to pay for it. So unless the individual is motivated to gain experience on their own time and dime they may not get a lot of expectance, particularly with highly skilled divers.

And you have probably seen a scuba instructor swimming vertically while churning up the bottom, experience does not inherently lead to expertise.

I suspect it's like cops and guns. For most of them it's a tool they carry around, the only training they get is from the PD. They only shoot during yearly qualification. A small percentage does any shooting on their own, an even smaller percentage shoot competitively or pay for professional training courses.

But I don't know how this organization works, so none of this may apply in this case.

 

[SCRedWolf]

but why were such unskilled divers the search and rescue team?

I used to work at a hospital and I often interfaced with our county's EMS/FD/SWAT training manager. He told me that back in the day their rescue divers were a mix of volunteers and existing personnel that were trained to do the job. The volunteers were the much more experienced of the group. Some law changed that said a certain percentage of all EMS/FD (those guys had the S&R divers) had to be paid professionals to qualify for federal funding and grants. He said that law changed things so the 20 year experienced S&R divers had to be replaced with noobs that were already on staff so they could keep certain grants from the gov't. What I don't know is the validity of his information since I didn't know anyone else that would be in a position to corroborate it. I myself don't take this as gospel and would love to know if anyone else can yea or nea it from a position of knowledge.

 

[tbzep]

There are several organizations, plus NFPA and OSHA requirements.

My PSD training requires for the tender to do a neuro check before the dive to assess general health of diver. During the dive, he calls out for pressure readings every 5 minutes and it is documented. He listens to breathing over the comm (unless it is PTT) to assess the diver's condition, in addition to anything spoken. Standard procedure is to have a tethered diver in the water, a safety diver tethered and ready to drop in immediately, and a 90% ready diver. It seems they were diving in pairs untethered, more like rec diving.

As for the mask issue, I have a Guardian and have used an AGA (Interspiro). They are nearly impossible to flood and you don't experience mask squeeze with them. I guess these guys were diving with standard masks and regs.

 

[boulderjohn]

As for the mask issue, I have a Guardian and have used an AGA (Interspiro). They are nearly impossible to flood and you don't experience mask squeeze with them. I guess these guys were diving with standard masks and regs.

Can you describe the process you would use if you ran out of air and had to switch to a pony while wearing one of those masks?

 

[uncfnp]

I know nothing of PSD but found this article very interesting and possibly relevant, especially the section by Andrea Zaferes on training, mask loss and ponies...

http://www.fireengineering.com/arti...irefighting-the-parallels-of-self-rescue.html

 

[KevinNM]

I know nothing of PSD but found this article very interesting and possibly relevant, especially the section by Andrea Zaferes on training, mask loss and ponies...

http://www.fireengineering.com/arti...irefighting-the-parallels-of-self-rescue.html

Paywall.

 

[pumpkinhead]

It appears that multiple simple mistakes were made (add poor buoyancy control to the list of things mentioned above).

Since we seem to be jumping on the training / experience bandwagon I would like to learn more about the training / experience requirements for PSD (Public Safety Diving). I have not yet done a search for relevant threads, so if there are some handy ones please link them in.

Is there an organization that sets standards? Are there mandatory standards? For training? For re-training? For drills? For experience level? For type of equipment? Are there well defined standard procedures to be followed?

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